Monday, 8 February 2016

Botanical snippets for February

A few botanical snippets for you: There's a new version of Plant Tracker here - the app that helps you track the spread of invasive non-native species.Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust has an interesting campaign, reported here in the local paper, to "reverse the dramatic decline in many wild flowers that were once a common sight in the county". There is a mention for BSBI and reference to some of the once common plants designated Near Threatened on the England Red List 2013, such as Ragged-robin, Green-winged orchid and Common rock-rose.Wildflower Hour goes from strength to strength, with hundreds of people taking to Twitter on Sunday evenings from 8-9pm so they can share images of plants seen in bloom during the previous week.

Common rock-roseImage courtesy of Floral Imageshttp://www.floralimages.co.uk/page.php?taxon=helianthemum_nummularium,1

This is a great time of year to check out training courses coming up during 2016. As well as looking in the obvious places like the BSBI Training page and the Field Studies Council website, do check out your local Wildlife Trust to see what they are up to. Here is BCNWT's training programme for this year, with courses on sedges, aquatics, and an introduction to using a wild flower key from the excellent Brian Eversham. Book quickly if you want a space on Brian's course! While you have your diaries out, have you seen the programme and booking form for this May's NFBR conference? 17 speakers already booked - 16 of them look really interesting and the other one will be me, wittering on about BSBI. Feel free to come along and heckle!